Despite my dislike of recent primitive-minimal experiments in rock, Philip Glass' North Star seems an estimable venture. Partly that's because (as a composer with a "serious" music reputation) Glass' recording is an act of outreach for a new audience at a time when the rock avant-gardists seem to be withdrawing from theirs. But North Star isn't a rock-oriented album simply because Virgin is a rock-associated label. The instrumentation is largely electric—Farfisa, Hammond and Yamaha organs, Fender Rhodes piano, ARP synthesizer—and in some places these keyboard fragments might pass as improvisations on themes from the first two Doors albums. This is particularly true of "Victor's Lament," which can be heard as an extension of the organ run in "Light My Fire."

The other factor is Glass' use of vocals. They lend the music a foreboding mystical feeling, a sort of medieval monkishness abetted by their wordlessness—the syllables might come from some ancient tongue like Latin or Greek. But the vocals also lend the music warmth rather than the abrasiveness so common in similar experiments by rock performers. While it is fairly obvious that North Star's mysticism is secular, it should connect with anyone familiar with even modern church music. More significantly, it ought to have some resonance for those fond of Jim Morrison's extended ventures into hypnotic chant—"Celebration of the Lizard," for instance. Indeed, together Morrison and Glass might have collaborated on an avant-garde rock sound which could lend form to much of the aimless doodling that now passes for invention and avant-gardism on the pop side of the ledger. North Star sets a high standard for future rock experiments. (RS 240)

DAVE MARSH